You know I was originally going to write out my thoughts after my first playthrough, but then I ended up doing two more and I somehow am finally putting the game down two months later. This is both a testament to it being good and me poor as shit.

Dragon's Dogma 2 can be a problematic game cause if you liked Dragon's Dogma, well I hope you really liked it. This game is Dragon's Dogma, but more and with some kinks ironed out, but not all of them. The game is janky and crusty, it can be frustrating, there's a bit of the Red Dead 2/Rockstar Games FUCK YOU physics going on. Yet unlike that it doesn't bother me as much here cause similar to Death Stranding (which I have yet to finish oops) it all still feels very responsive and snappy in comparison. The most annoying thing being really that to this day and forever going forward I will always be spoiled by Breath of the Wild just letting me climb any surface and any game that doesn't let me do that is immediately going to be worse off for me. But who cares this shit is fun as fuck. It really makes you work for that Frank Frazetta art power fantasy, but when you get to the point where you're doing that? Oooohhh babyyyyyyyy. Lordy it looks good too. Seen a lot of people say it looks like a PS3 game with the art direction it has and like yes bro. I want the sequel to a PS3 game to look like a sequel to a PS3 game. PS3 could never pull off the lighting you get from the RT in this. Probably the first implementation of it in a Capcom game I've really liked. I took the FPS hits fuck it. That shit mean nothing to me when the game good enough.

Honestly would say the game's weakest element is its story again. It does the whole very minimalist thing where everything is sort of just happening as it goes along shtick once more. This time though it hits a massive brick wall when you reach Battahl for a couple of hours. You're just left there sort of meandering doing random quests. Getting attacked left and right cause someone decided every inch of the map needed to be goblins and wolves and gore harpies. Then it suddenly straps you to a jet engine off a cliff into the craziest climax I've seen in a game since well... Itsuno's last project which was DMC5. The Unmoored World is just oh my god holy fuck the Unmoored World and the concept of it is just so sick. Cannot believe this game got to do it's own version of the depths from Tears of the Kingdom, but then fused that shit with the Red Earth hellscape from Shin Evangelion. I cum.

Excited for whatever the DLC ends up being especially if we get something that's a follow up that actually expands on everything that happened and isn't just another BBI. God it's so refreshing to play a new Action RPG that isn't a stupid ass Soulslike. God bless.

Wilhelmina best girl I ain't arguing with anyone who tries to say otherwise.

Replayed (really going back and finishing a second playthrough I dropped around a year ago) over the course of the long Halloween weekend after Shadows of Rose dropped and yeah, this got crazy replay value once you know where everything is and are trying to do or get to acquire EZ money to upgrade your weapons. It really helps to make the grind for infinite ammo and unlockable weapons much funner when you can blitz through the game in like 2 hours.

Finally gave Village of Shadows a try and it's cool and the enemy remixes do be keeping you on alert but holy fuck that Chris section SUCKS in that mode.

'ate Eastern Europe
'ate giant babies
'ate mega-maniacal freaks
luv the S.T.A.K.E.
luv the infinite WCX
luv evil milfs
simple as!

Gonna be honest kinda underwhelmed by this. It is more classic Doom and if you like classic Doom you will like this game. Period. This is also unfortunately it's biggest fault as it just feels like a darker and browner retread of classic Doom; a sort of flux state between Doom 2 and Doom 3. That being said there's a biting late 90s edge to this one that a lot of the M rated N64 games had that I can one hundred percent get behind. The game also oozes atmosphere easily one of the moodiest games of that era and the weird ambient score ocasionally broken up by weird distorted sounds of people screaming and moaning or babies crying just adds to that. I just wish the game itself was as fun to play as the other Doom games...

I don't think there's any inherently bad Doom game and this is definitely not a bad game, but this is for sure probably the weakest Doom for me now. Maybe if I give it another shot down the line, but if we're talking about N64 FPS's I'd rather be playing the first two Turok games. Also, fuck the Lost Souls in this one whoever programmed most encounters with them to spawn above AND behind you deserves to get kicked in the nuts.

Everything good about the base game is further expanded on this with the added benefit of a party that I honestly (mostly) liked much more and Rex somehow being hot as fuck plus a DPS monster that just outclasses everyone else and dies 10 seconds into a fight cause I end up taking all the enemies attention. Holy shit he's so fucking cool in this. Dope as fuck. THAT'S MY (former) MC. Really like all the new bits with N too. I feel that while Xeno3 fumbles the bag with some of its cast (and especially Moebius) specific characters like N and Shania are some of the best in the whole trilogy. Just really good stuff there that appeals to that level of despair and sadness masters of their craft like Go Nagai and James Cameron can just suddenly bring to their works to break you heart.

Idk shit about Xenosaga cause I never got to it (I promise I will one day), but happy for everyone that got their massive callbacks to that or Xenoblade X whichever you want it to be. Earn that W kings and queens. All 7 of you in each side.

Really the only bad thing I have to say about this is that it has no proper New Game Plus mode which just makes me not give a shit about the things I missed when saving after the credits just leaves you off before the final boss. Guess it works for completionists which is cool, but I'm gonna be real when games do that it just makes me not want to keep going for some reason. I guess knowing I basically beat the boss just kills my motivation unless I have to work my way up there again. Who knows the human brain is nonsense.

Surreal as fuck to see all this Klaus shit come full circle and to an end when we almost at one point never even got these games. Also surreal as to how Xenoblade 2 chads won so hard in the end even outside of their own game. Massively excited to walk forward into the future of whats to come.

Gonna preface this by saying Jill is easily the coolest character in the entire series and this still a huge comeback after the JUSTing she received in RE5 lmao

Presentation of this game downright gorgeous from lighting with heavy emphasis on deep shadows and saturated colors as opposed to RE2 2019's more black and darkness with natural colors. Deffo prefer the look of this game to that one. Both look fantastic tho RE engine wizard tech.

That aside feel really frustrated and conflicted whenever I talk about or play this game. There's so much it does well but also so many things that bring it down. Wouldn't call it terrible or even mediocre but it really does leave you with a bit of an empty bittersweet feeling as opposed to the hype and nostalgic excitement RE2 leaves you with. All the cut areas don't really hurt much on a first playthrough but on repeats you really feel it. Hospital overstays its welcome and easily features the worst section of the game with ANOTHER stupid RE4 cabin sequence.

Shame about Nemesis too. His boss battles are really cool and fun but he is only stalkerman for like the first 90 minutes, in a game that can be around 6 hours on a first run. Even less time if you speed through the game. If you told me 10 years ago I would find Mr. X more of a threat than Nemesis I would have laughed in your face.

Music on point this time around though another thing I definitely prefer over RE2 with its recreation of original RE3 tracks as opposed to the more minimalist approach of its predecessor.

Love how this feels compared to RE2 as well. Jill controls so well and smoothly compared to Claire and Leon that if I went right back to 2 I would probably feel kind of annoyed at the low running speed. My hottest take in regards to this one do be that this is the best feeling RE engine Resident Evil. Even more than Village, so that's definitely its biggest achievement.

Really the thing most going against this game is its super short production schedule. It should have been delayed for a few more months or a year or just been marketed/released as a big DLC add on for 2. The fact RE2 was updated with a section on the menu to take you the PS store so you can buy this should speak volumes haha

Original RE3 wasn't really one of my favorite growing up and I really didn't grow to appreciate it much until my late teens when I replayed all the games leading to 6. So while I can empathize with people's problems with the remake I'm not really as bothered by them to the point of being entitled and calling it absolute dogshit.

tl;dr dope ass game that's problematic due to short dev time and is not as good as its predecessor overall but also has things that it does better

"You want S.T.AR.S. I'll give you S.T.A.R.S." being interruptible by Nemesis punching you and putting it while running away from him instead of turning him into chili con carne at the end is unforgivable though game ruined.

Breath of the Wild was a special game to me upon release. It was the first console launch I ever participated in (and will ever participate in cause that shit was not worth it!!!). I took time off work just to fully immerse myself in it and it was probably the last time a video game hit me with a specific feeling. The feeling to go outside and touch grass after spending a whole week cooped up at home away from work just traveling through Hyrule doing whatever thing caught my attention and getting distracted from any of the main quests. Sadly not all good things last and eventually I had to finish the game, but to this day it’s probably alongside Xenoblade 2 the most a video game has had a real world impact on me.

To a degree I can probably thank BOTW for partly being the reason I even began to even further appreciate just what we have on this planet we call home. It’s also a big factor as to why I went back and gave James Cameron’s Avatar another shot. Two pieces of media that put their full focus on how alive and real the world is. Both eventually falling victim to the “It’s overrated” or “It was never that good” take. Now what the fuck does this have to do with Tears of the Kingdom? Well for the impatient the analogy is that just like Avatar: The Way of Water which was a fantastic and better sequel to an already fantastic film. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom comes and blows the absolute lid off of BOTW to the point it may as well have been a beta test for this.

It’s no secret there’s a very loud minority out there of people that don’t like the new direction these games are taking and that’s perfectly fine. I didn’t like the direction RE took when it switched to first person initially, but lucky for me RE7 ended up being one of my favorites in the series and saved a franchise that was slowly and surely sinking further and further into just being nonsense and now we have fantastic remakes of RE2 and 4 and a stellar follow up to RE7 in the form of RE8.

Every factor that made BOTW great has been turned up to 11 and this includes adding in fixes to some of the more annoying aspects of the game. Didn’t like the combat shrines? There’s less of them this time with most of them being big puzzles that get really tricky dicky I’m not even kidding some of these are real brain stumpers and I kind of really love finding the most stupid dumbass galaxy brain way to solve them that works anyways instead of what the devs intended. Exploration leading to Zonai items and weapons besides shrines or Koroks now also helps to make the experience less tiring as you’re constantly discovering new shit that’s been added to this revamp of the original map. Weapon degradation, one of the most controversial aspects of the first game (skill issue btw) becomes genuinely fun with the fuse mechanic. Sure while my gamer brain went straight to just eventually always having a Lynel ready to go to get top tier drops for fusion those few times where my weapon got even stronger close to the end from fusing shit was such an elating feeling that the first game never had. TOTK is to BOTW what Doom Eternal is to Doom 2016. A game that takes all of what worked in the previous and shoots it to the next level. I genuinely don’t think as much as I love that game I can ever go back to BOTW or perhaps I am just being a hyperbolic moron and can easily pick it up once I get used to losing some good shit. Yeah sure the combat is still kinda braindead if you aren’t some crazy motherfucker who somehow turns it into DMC, but I also don’t really mind it cause if that’s how versatile the engine and mechanics can be then that’s just another skill issue on our part.

Also while the repeating Sage cutscenes are annoying this probably has the actual best narrative set-pieces in one of these since Wind Waker. The fact it reaches a level of spectacle I wasn’t expecting after how much more restrained BOTW was comparatively has left me completely awestruck. Some of the story beats that happen in this and the last hour or so of the game are going to be not just all timers for the franchise, but all timers for games I’ve played across my time on this Earth.

Game’s been out for a month now so I’m sure everyone ever has said what they want to say about it, but to me personally that much time spent on it? Well that’s just special. An open world game I was able to play for almost a month straight without getting bored? All that time spent on it not because I’d have to put it down from fatigue or getting angry at some bullshit boss, but because I genuinely enjoyed exploring the world and finding new things to do and quests to complete. Oh, and I haven’t even talked about The Depths. Fuck me, I love The Depths.

TOTK is not going to change your mind if you didn’t like BOTW or grew to dislike it over the years of its release, but if you did like it you will love Tears of the Kingdom. Period. That being said I do think BOTW has one advantage against tears. That is that it came first. As good as Tears is, it has in fact fallen into the "it's the sequel" trap to a degree. While there's plenty of new it's also familiar, not as fresh, and while the map has had plenty of changes made to it it's still the Hyrule from 2017 just a bit more alive. For that, no matter how much Tears of the Kingdom improved I don't think it'll ever really surpass Breath of the Wild for me as one of my favorite games of all time and that's perfectly fine. I’m sure sooner or later, just like when Breath of the Wild released and now that I’ve completed Tears of the Kingdom I’ll be finding places to just go out and walk for the day and appreciate life and the world we inhabit and the people I have in my life that can be lost at any moment.

Very clearly a game made with years of hard work and guts. The time spent on the original plus this one equating to basically 10 years of dev time and it shows. It may not have the best story in the world. It can even be called bad or uninspired, but what this is as a video game is probably going to go down in the annals of history. As will many other games released this year. Nintendo may be some real nasty scumfuck motherfuckers, but man when they deliver, they fucking deliver. Now if I can just find a bad bitch like Purah...

Hideaki Itsuno really just does games inspired by manga he likes huh? Bleach with DMC4 and now Berserk and other fantasy manga like Claymore with this.

Last played this in 2013 on PS3 with the crusty letterboxing and framerate when I only had a copy of the base game and this may be one of the most pleasant replays of any game in recent memory.

With my 2022 brain talking I can say that Dragon's Dogma isn't perfect and is full of things that have been mostly ironed out or dealt with through quality of life changes in more recent open world games, but I would argue this alone gives it personality these other games don't have. DD doesn't have silly Ubisoft towers you scour the map for to find fast travel points or any of that. You have to find crystals and set them near areas you'll be passing by a lot specifically to do that and without the help of DLC the Ferrystone item to use for fast traveling is finite. This really was the game I was wishing for back in 2011 when Skyrim released and while I enjoyed my time with that, this just absolutely demolishes it when that insane choir comes up when you knock a huge monster down. Insane to me this released during Capcom's horrible western outsourcing/COD player appeal phase. Itsuno GOATED for this one and I hope whenever DD2 happens he makes it it's own thing to truly make it stand out from the modern open world game.

Story a bit nonsense, but it's good fantasy novel nonsense with Japanese CUHRAYZEE hype and pulls off SMT shit by the end with gameplay sequences that feel like playable Frank Frazetta art so I must simply stan. Climatic battle against Grigori easily an all timer in the hall of OH YEAH THIS IS HAPPENING moments in gaming. Bliss.

Anyways, how can a game where I can make a huge tan muscle girl that swings a giant sword around be bad???

GU was an absolute power move of a game. Motherfucker comes in full force with probably the best expansion entry of the franchise. Valstrax more than steals the show as the cover monster and the secondary flagship Bloodbath Diablos is one of the most extreme fights ever put into a non Frontier Monster Hunter.

Two new styles are added into this alongside some new Deviants for the rest of the Fated Four; Valor and Alchemy. While the latter I haven't used much the former on the other hand...and as someone who pretty much mains Valor Great Sword almost exclusively that shit is THE SHIT. It's so hype I sometimes find myself preferring it to World's GS moveset. Dat dash bro, DAT FUCKIN DASH. Features one of the best and most genuinely surprising final bosses in the entire franchise with Ahtal-Ka.

The only thing that truly kinda sucks about this is that you still have to play through the weaker first third of Generations to access the incredible high rank village and G-Rank gathering hub quests, but when you do and that's all you're doing leaving behind silly garbage like killing 50 Bnahabras and instead sick quests like Jho and Rajang at the same time? It reaches the absolute kind of peak fun video games should strive to be.

As someone who became a huge Avatar fan after rewatching the first movie back in 2019 and realizing "Oh, this fucking owns actually." and then having this announced before The Way of Water even had footage for us to see had me so excited for another round at a game that actually could get what the film went for. Well for better or worse Ubisoft was the right publisher for this.

Gonna get it out of the way the movies are peak blockbuster cinema, end of. James Cameron has not lost his touch and continues to not miss (as long as he's not producing a movie or making a documentary). Both Avatars are everything a blockbuster should be perfectly blending spectacle, incredible VFX, and a gaggle of characters you root for. The game on the other hand and I'm not gonna sugercoat it kind of fumbles this. It's story isn't downright terrible and it's serviceable as "event we can't go too crazy with cause it's canon and happens between movie 1 and 2", but man does it really lack that punch Cameron's talents give his movies. It really feels kind of like the new Zelda games where they came up with this insane incredible world to traverse and then remembered they needed a reason for any of that to happen or connect. I don't know how to better explain it than it just feels super bland and safe compared to the movies. When we finally get something akin to the Destruction of the Hometree or the Tulkun Hunt it just sort of feels like "WELL WE NEED A BIT LIKE THAT!" and while it's visually impressive and oppressive it's so late in a story where I haven't been nearly as endeared to these characters that it just feels like filling out a checklist. Also a smaller, but just as problematic issue for me is the music. It's good, nothing really bad about it, but it's a damn shame they don't riff or just straight up use more of James Horner's (absolute real one RIP) or Simon Franglen's incredible work throughout. War and Bad Parents are insane bangers and god I just wish more of the combat music sounded that fucking good. There's good imitations of their works, but that's just it. It feels like imitation. Imagine if a Star Wars game didn't use some John Williams. People would freak the fuck out.

All that aside fuck the story, fuck the kinda not as good as the movie's music. Ignore all of that shit cause where this game owns is capturing the vibe of being on Pandora. Holy shit this phrase is overused for games, but you really feel like a Na'vi. You bump your head on the ceiling indoors and you're so fast and traverse the underbrush and trees like a spider monkey on pure 99.9% genuine meth. It's the closest a game has come to feeling like Titanfall 2 since Titanfall 2 and it's an Avatar game of all things. A game based on a movie that clearly had a heavy influence on Titanfall 2. It's a match made in heaven. I played this shit for 70 hours and never once got tired of slide kicking and Captain Falcon kneeing RDA goons across their skulls. Add in the fun as hell gunplay (with an insane Shotgun holy hell it's so sick) and like the best of games while the story may falter in the place that matters more for video games which is playing it? This shit passes with flying colors.

Being away from Ubisoft open world games since Blood Dragon has probably helped my enjoyment of this too. I don't know what's reused, old, or new and I don't care! I win! I am feasting.

I haven't even talked about being able to fly on an Ikran and how crazy that shit is to be chilling in the skies and then you dive bomb a Scorpion shooting out it's wings. It's good shit. Get it if you like the movies I cannot recommend this enough if that applies to you. Hope to god the DLC stories introduce Recoms I need that insane anime type beat contrast of natural Pandora Na'vi vs Na'vi decked out in future tactical military gear.

FUCK AVATAR IS SO SICK GRAAAAAAAAHHHHH

Meathead Greek mythology (complimentary)

I don't care for what the new games are doing and to replay 1 and 2 I'd have to lug out the PSTriple and this one was on sale for like 10 bucks so I said shiiit why not. Anyways you can tell this is a game still made with PS2 era philosophy cause you get that bullshit bit with the exploding dogs and goatfucks.

Rules though, I wish if we were going to be stuck with action games that do light and heavy attacks we'd get more shit like this (or even Ninja Gaiden) instead of lame Soulslikes. Classic Kratos may also be one of the most unsubtle yet subtly funny characters of all time. Cackling like a maniac every time you see the gears in his head turn and you know he's planning some vile shit to do to the guy he's gonna kill. And for as much of a horrible person he is they all still deserved it. Also, love love love the use of the camera angles in this. Just going through the levels and seeing the camera switch or zoom out is more cinematic than anything the newer games wish to push as cinematic when its basically planted the camera behind Kratos' back. I sleep!

Game's old enough at this point to be considered a classic and it is. Original God of War trilogy at its best never ever hit the same combat depth highs as a lot of its Japanese contemporaries (even more nowadays), but it did successfully deliver a proper blood soaked power fantasy in video game format that would thrill you from beginning to end. Insane to me that only the end to the original trilogy is easily and readily available. Something about it just feels maliciously transparent to how much more they want us to care about the newer games instead.

Literally more of a Michael Bay movie than the actual Michael Bay movie that released the same year the PS360 version originally came out in. Ridiculously over the top campaign that differentiates itself perfectly from the surprisingly subtle and even oppressive predecessor. The name of the game here is shoot shoot kill and tear through to the end of the chapter. Yes it is the best one to this date and none of the CODs after it have ever hit the peak blockbuster high of this campaign. Funniest part of the game tho tbh is Zimmer just recreating his The Rock score and the huge amount of sequences just lifted from it.

Wish the multiplayer was a part of this and they kept it as janky as the original release if only cause it was probably the most fun I ever had in a toxic environment as a teen lmfao. Stockholm syndrome real.

And now to return to Elden Cock Ring...

Came back to finish this before moving on to all the extra stuff Quake 2 has to offer.

Well, with this my nearly two year journey with Quake comes to an end and what an ending indeed. May actually genuinely be my favorite Quake campaign. Balls to the walls nonstop action with at least one Quad hidden every level for maximum dopamine output. This campaign is just a banger plain and simple. The devs took everything that ever worked in all the past expansions and removed most of the bullshit (still kept the Spawns though but at least they're usually in pairs instead of 20 at once) for arguably the best official Quake content ever made.

Really don't have much else to say. Quake's base campaign gets a little rough towards the end, but it's a bonafide classic that stands the test of time. Now with the latest release available practically everywhere. Two expansion packs with two further expansion campaigns each made with the 20 extra years of game development knowledge gathered since the original Quake came out? I'd say not playing Quake when it's more easily accessible than ever is a disservice to anyone who enjoys first person shooters and yearns for the nonstop fast paced crackhead courage speed of older shooters. Yeah, I'm thinking it's a banger.

Also, the whole rune gathering while warping into levels from a hub area yo this shit is just Turok and I'll always pog to that.